Sudan's protests become civil insurrection

Sudan has a history of non-violent pro-democracy civil insurrection which far pre-dates the Arab Spring. But can such an uprising succeed today?

A growing anti-government movement
consisting of nonviolent demonstrations as well as scattered rioting is
beginning to threaten the Sudanese dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, an indicted
war criminal, who has ruled this large North African nation for twenty-three
years. Beginning as protests
against strict austerity measures imposed three weeks ago, the chants of the
protesters have escalated to "the people want to overthrow the regime,"
the line heard in recent uprisings in other Arab countries, including Egypt,
Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and Syria.

Could Sudan be the next Arab country in
which an autocratic government is brought down in a largely nonviolent civil
insurrection?

Some analysts have dismissed the prospects
of a successful uprising by noting the sheer brutality of the Sudanese regime,
responsible for a genocidal counter-insurgency war in its western province of
Darfur and decades of bloody repression in the southern part of the country,
now the newly-independent republic of South Sudan.

However, it is not the brutality of the
regime that determines whether or not it can be toppled by a largely nonviolent
civil insurrection. The 900 people killed during the 18-day
Egyptian uprising was a higher total than any 18-day period of the Syrian
uprising during its earlier nonviolent phase, but the Egyptian revolutionaries persisted
and won. Similarly, Tunisian
dictator Ben Ali ordered his forces to open fire on the hundred s of thousands
of nonviolent protesters on Bourguiba Avenue in Tunis, but the soldiers
refused, forcing him to flee.

What determines the fate of autocrats being
challenged by civil insurrections is not the threat of repression per se as it
is the ability of the pro-democratic opposition to undermine the pillars of
support for the regime – such as security forces, economic elites, foreign
backers, and others – through massive non-cooperation.

Many in the West are unaware that Sudan – despite
its horrific history of authoritarianism and violence in recent decades – also
has a history of largely nonviolent pro-democracy civil insurrections which
pre-date not just the recent revolts of the “Arab Spring,” but the
pro-democracy uprisings in Africa during the early 1990s that brought down
dictatorships in Mali, Benin, Madagascar and elsewhere in the continent.

The first major Sudanese pro-democracy insurrection
took place against the regime of Field Marshal Ibrahim Abboud in October
1964. When authorities tried to
ban increasing public debate regarding the legitimacy of the military
government, which had ruled the country since 1958, large protests by a
coalition of students, professionals, workers, leftists, nationalists and
Islamists broke out. Within a
week, a general strike had shut down the country. On October 28, scores of nonviolent protesters in Khartoum
were gunned down by government forces.
Politicians and activists, through family and other personal ties, took
advantage of a deepening split within the military to convince them to depose
Abboud and return the country to civilian governance on October 30. A series of unstable civilian coalition
governed the country until a military coup in 1969, led by Jafaar Nimeiry.

Over the next sixteen years, Nimeiry shifted
his ideology from left-wing nationalist, to pro-Western anti-communist, to
Islamist, but not his autocratic style of leadership. Early in the spring of 1985, however, there were a series of
massive and largely nonviolent demonstrations in the capital of Khartoum and
the neighboring city of Omdurman.
A general strike called by trade unions and professional organizations
paralyzed the country as the pro-democracy movement gained increasing support
from a growing cross-section of the population, including the business
community. Despite thousands of
arrests and scores of shootings, the largely-peaceful protests continued, with
even the country’s judiciary joining in the civil rebellion. Protesters shut
down pro-government radio stations and occupied airport runways to prevent
Nimeiry, who was on a state visit to Washington, from returning home. On April 6, the military seized power,
formally overthrowing the dictator. Pro-democracy activists continued their
protests, however, forcing the new junta to allow for an interim civilian-led
government followed by democratic elections which gave the Sudanese one of the most open
democratic political systems in the Arab world.

As with the earlier experiment in
democracy, however, the shaky civilian governments which followed were unable
to unify the country and a coalition of military officers and hardline
Islamists seized power in 1989 and have ruled ever since.

This inevitably raises the question of
whether such an uprising can succeed again.

There are some major differences between
Sudan today and Sudan during these previous uprisings, not the least of which
has been the systematic destruction under al-Bashir’s rule of key civil society
institutions, particularly the trade unions, which played a major role in the
1964 and 1985 uprisings. Still,
pro-democracy groups like Girifna (Arabic for “We are fed up”) have continued
to organize.

In addition to armed regional rebellions in
the west, south and northeast in recent decades, there have also been periodic
nonviolent struggles for greater democracy and accountability. In the 1990s, anti-regime protests were
gaining traction until the 1998 U.S. bombing of the country’s largest
pharmaceutical plant (apparently based on erroneous intelligence that it was a
chemical weapons factory controlled by Al-Qaeda) enabled the regime to steer
popular resentment towards the United States. Another uprising in 2005, centered in the poorer shantytowns
of the capital, was violently suppressed.

The current uprising, however, is the most
serious to challenge the regime so far.
Despite being met by severe repression, there have been some impressive
innovations by the pro-democracy forces.
Recognizing the vulnerability of large concentrations of protesters to
the armed forces of repressive regimes, the protests have organized as a series
of simultaneous small demonstrations in many part of the country and various
neighborhoods of the capital.
Though students, as in the previous uprisings, are disproportionately
represented among the protesters, there is also a strong component of poor and
working class Sudanese, as well as older people. The grievances are not ethnic or even ideological as much as
they are a simple demand for accountable government. Women have been playing an important role as well, with the
first protest of the current uprising being organized by female students at the
University of Khartoum on June 15.

Just as the movement has been consciously
decentralized in terms of protests, it has been consciously decentralized in
terms of organization. One pro-democracy activist noted how the secret police arrest
Girifina members daily as if they are looking to jail the leadership, but “they
just can't get it that Girifna is a leaderless movement and no matter how much
you arrest of us we simply will not stop.”

Though the movement faces enormous
challenges and victory is by no means certain, the current protests in Sudan
illustrate that even the most brutal regime is ultimately vulnerable if it
loses legitimacy in the eyes of its people.

About the author

Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, where he coordinates the Middle Eastern Studies program, and co-chairs the academic advisory committee for the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.

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